Newman is something you bump into when you back up to look at a Pollock.
I might've said that when I was in my early 20s. When I thought painterly bravado was where it was at.
It wasn't until I was halfway through my 40s that Newman sparked my interest.
Did you know that Barnett Newman ran for mayor of New York in 1933 when he was just twenty-eight?
"The present political campaign in New York has now run long enough to reveal that once again the artist, the musician, the writer, the actor, the teacher, the scientist, the thinker, and the man of culture generally, have nothing to hope for from any of the candidates. Once again we find repeated that barbarism of American life, the political campaign, conducted by politicians dedicated to personal exhibition and sold to civic corruption. In the whole gushing flood of execrable prose and stilted oratory poured out by the contending parties, with a flotsam and jetsam of recrimination, backbiting, and lies, not one word is given to any real issue, not one thought is expressed with an appeal to the intelligent, and no trace whatsoever is revealed by any contender that culture is the foundation of not only our present society, but of all our hopes for all future societies to come."
This sentiment is the foundation of Newman's artistic life and production.
Now, I bump into Pollock to be closer to Newman.
-Joshua Abelow